31dc2013 Day Twenty

31dc2013 Day twenty: Water Marble


         First off I would like to say this was another first for me. I never tried this technique before simply because of how labor intensive it seems/ looks. I've also read that it's pretty hard to perfect. For me it seems like another design that works best for people with long or bigger nails then I, but i suppose it wouldn't be a challenge if it was all easy right? So here we go with my attempt, and by the way, I chose to only do my thumbs middle and ring finger with the water marble technique. The rest of my fingers I kept plain-ish.

     Since it was my first time trying this out I wanted to start simple with a 2 color marble.

       Sorry that ones a little grainy, I have a few other shots that will hopefully show the look off a little better.

        The two colors used are Sinful Colors "mesmerize" which is a dark blurple (blueish purple, purplish blue?) and Julep "Sasha" a nice coral shade.

      I added the dots with a dotting tool to add some more color and interest to the finished look. My top coat smeared it a little bit but you certainly couldn't tell from a distance.

      The finished result was kinda trippy and cool. I want to try this again the clean-up wasnt nearly as bad as I feared. I liberally applied cuticle oil around the nails before the water-marbling to make it  a bit easier. So there it is!

   Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Eighteen

31dc2013 Day eighteen: Half Moons

       I love the look of half moon manicures, it can be done so many different ways to achieve different looks, but I feel with simple colors it's a fabulous classic look. As I've mentioned in other posts I love combining creme polishes with something sparkly. When It came to half moon day I knew what I wanted to do!

       I started with two coats of Julep "Sienna" Which is a beautiful white gold metallic polish. This polish has great coverage for a metallic, it's also just very pretty. Now this is where patience is a virtue. You MUST let the bottom coat fully dry! I've seen people use binder enforcers for their circles, but for some reason I can never find them in any of the office supply stores around me so I just use band-aid ends. So once your base is dry you can place your sticker, band-aid, tape or whatever you may be using over the bottom of your nail bed making sure the corners of your nails are fully taped off. I noticed if you touch the sticker or band aid a bunch to get rid of some of the stickiness, it makes the removal a little easier and tends not to pull up your base coat.

        I then went over the top of the nail with just one coat of Zoya "Farah", and then removed my band-aid to reveal the pretty gold underneath. Zoya Farah is such a great neutral polish! it has great coverage and I think it suits my skin tone really well. I may have to get another bottle because I use this one so often. It levels itself out so nicely and has great coverage for something so pale. As you can see from the photo's one coat even over gold was enough for full beautiful coverage.

          I went over it all with some topcoat just for some extra shine.

       SO PRETTY! I personally loved this combo and will probably where it again. I think it would make a nice accent nail. I also think this look is neutral enough for the office, but fancy enough for the office party (not that I would know, I work in a record store pretty much by myself). What do you think of this look?


     Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Sixteen

31dc2013 Day sixteen: Tribal print

      Okay, I didn't make it to the store. I still wanted to give it a shot anyway. Since my delicate print was such a fail, I decided to only try to do the tribal print on my middle finger and thumb. I also tried a new (to me) technique on my pointer and pinky fingers called saran wrap nails. I also added a glitter nail (my ring finger).

      Not sure who coined the term, but I suppose this would be called a skittlette manicure.
On my thumb and middle fingers i started with two coats of julep "niecy" Which is a bright bubblegum creme. For my pointer and ring finger I started with a coat of "Rainstorm" by sinful colors. After that dried I painted a thin coat of julep "jessica" and took some bunched up plastic wrap and dapped up some of the color to create a marble look. To me it almost looked like acid washed jeans which looked pretty cool with the bright pink! For my ring finger I added 3 coats of julep "oscar" a pretty dense gold glitter.

     Once my base polish was dry I free handed a simple design over the pink nails. Finished it all off with a coat of extra shiny top coat and voila!. Not the best but certainly better then my previous post. What's your favorite nail art tool for doing small line work?

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Twelve

31dc2013 Day twelve: Stripes
   

     Normally I start my posts with a picture. Today i'm going to start off with a little disclaimer.  I had a very hard time with this, and not because I can't paint straight lines, just because I was lacking inspiration, motivation, or patience for that matter. Everything I tried came out looking like crap. First I was going to do some Steelers inspired stripes (my husband is a huge steelers fan), but that didn't work.

   See total crappola! This was my second attempt and still terrible. Then I thought maybe a blue purple brown stripe combo would work nice, but my hands we're being shakey and I couldnt concentrate. bleh.

     It looked wonky so I thought maybe adding some Julep melissa would finish it up. NOPE still terrible.

      Even fuzzy and far away I wasn't into it. After this I just took my polish off and went to bed. Messing up my nails that many times made me so frustrated this is all you get for the stripes challenge. SORRY! oh-well

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Eleven

31dc2013 Day eleven: Polka dots

    Hello again! Today's challenge is polka dots. There is something so simple and smart about polka dots. It's such a happy print in my opinion. I've already done a polka dot manicure using black and white for day 7 of the challenge, so I wanted to do something a little different. I've seen this gradient style polka dot manicure floating around the web for a while so I figured I would give it a shot.

    I started this look off with a coat of sinful colors "last chance" which is a dark green jelly polish. Then I did a diagonal sweep across the top of the nails in julep "Melisa" which is a opalescent topper.

     I then did a line of polka dots in Melissa along the line then continued on to the green. Then I used the green over Melissa. over all a very easy look to accomplish.

    I really like the way Melissa looked in different lighting. It had this very pretty shimmer to it.
Well that's all folks!

   Steady hand to all!

31dc2013 Day Eight

31dc2013 Day eight: Metallic Nails

   Typically i'm not a huge fan of metallic polishes because they become streaky or they can be rather sheer. Two of the 5 metallic polishes used for this look were quite sheer.

    The photo above is one coat of the each of the four polishes I used for this gradient. On my thumb is sinful colors "hot wired" which is a dark silver/pewter color which is very sheer. On my pointer (top right) is sinful colors "super nova" which is a shimmery light gold which was the sheerest of the bunch. On my middle finger is Julep "dakota"  which is a nice rose gold that has pretty good coverage, and on my ring finger (far left) is one coat of Julep "Rachel". Rachel is a nice rich shimmery copper color that is richly pigmented, but tends to get that streaky look. Now back to the final product.

    I started this look of with a coat of China glaze "attraction" which is a dark grey metallic color from the Magnetix collection. Since it's a magnetic polish it's super saturated and only needed one coat for full opacity. Unfortunately I didn't snap any photo's for the process of this manicure, just the finished product and some swatches... Oop's!

   I painted a gradient of hot wire, super nova, dakota, and Rachel onto a make-up sponge and then sponged each nail with the copper colors closest to the tips. Almost like a rainbow of metallic polishes. I finished the whole thing off with a coat of Sephora O.P.I. "It's real" 18kt gold flake top coat. I LOVE this top coat! It has the prettiest matte gold flakies in a really nice thick (but not gloopy) clear base. Although I would never pay the original $30 price tag for it, I was totally happy to snag it for $6 when it was marked down on the sephora web-site. It adds an almost marble/stone effect to this look, but look great over pretty much any colors especially darker vampy colors. Thanks for reading!

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day six

31dc2013 Day six: Violet nails

       Hello again! Today I have a little bit of a nail art fail and a swatch for you guys. I'm going to start with a description of the purple nails you see above. I like how the pointer, middle, and pinky came out but I think the thumb and ring finger could have been better. First i'll show you the base colors for this look:

    The photo above was taken outdoors in the shade, The one below was taken in direct sunlight.

   As you can see from the photos, the polish on my pointer and middle finger are painted with a polish that changes from a lilac shade to a dusty mauve when exposed to uv light (natural or not). It's made by ruby wing polishes and is called "zen garden" applies a little thin on the first coat but a second coat evens it all out. One thing I noticed about this polish is that after a few days it fades to an almost light grey and no longer changes when exposed to light. On to the other nails, on my thumb and ring finger is a coat of Julep "Charlotte" which is a dusty matte purple that could easily be a one coater. It dries with an almost rubbery finish. On my pinky I used just one coat of NYC "Wine bar" which is a really pretty plum jelly, I really love this color it's juicy and squishy and applies very nicely for a cheaper polish. Now onto the "art"!

     On my pointer and middle finger over the ruby wing "zen garden" I wanted to try something new.
So I grabbed a coffee straw, Julep "charlotte" (which I used as the base on my thumb and ring finger), Julep "kylie" (which is a very pigmented bright purple with shimmer because it is a magnetic polish) and NYC "wine bar". I took turns dipping the straw in the 3 colors and dabbing them on to the nails. I think these colors compliment each other nicely and gives my nails a swirly fun look that was really easy to do! Excuse my lovely hang nail.

     I reversed the look for my pinky starting with NYC "wine bar" as a base and then stamping with Julep "charlotte", "Kylie" and ruby wing "zen garden".   For my thumb and ring finger I went over Julep "charlotte" with two coats of Spoiled "checkin into rehab" which is a lovely dark purple jelly with small flakie glitters. I then made a moon with a sponge and some white polish added some litte stars then tried my best to do a silhouette of a tree.

    Up close it's pretty messy, but from a distance it looks okay. Overall I like how the coffee straw stamping worked out but I'm not such a fan of my thumb or ring finger. Oh well.

    That's not all folks! I have a quick swatch and review for you as well! I recently purchased a bottle of Maybelline Color show "Plush Plum" which is apart of the limited edition fall 2013  vintage leather collection.

      In the bottle it looks like a beautiful rich plum jelly polish with some flakies in it. On the nail I wasn't so pleased. It took three coats to be opaque and was very streaky and lumpy. It was very difficult to apply evenly. I still like the color and it is very much a jelly polish, but it dry's to a matte finish.

    You can see kinda how lumpy it looks when dry. Also the flakies get lost when this polish dries to become matte. Since it was a jelly consistency I was curious what it would look like glossy, so I added some top coat.

I like how juicy it looks when glossy, but i still wasn't pleased with how uneven it laid on the nails, so I put on some fast dry top coat so I could perhaps add some matte top coat to see if evening it out made me like it more. When I applied the fast dry top coat something weird happened.

    The fast dry top coat for some reason gave it a frosty satin like finish. It must of somehow reactivated the matte effect? It wasn't very even though so I still added a coat of matte top coat.

    I liked it much better this way then how it dried and applied on it's own, but takes far too much work and polish to achieve. All in all this polish was just not for me. It was only $3.99 at my local CVS so the price is nice, so if you can get past the lumpiness give it a try because it is a very pretty color, but otherwise I think you would be better off picking up NYC  "wine bar" if all your after is a nice plum shade.  Thanks for reading!

Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day two

31dc2013 Day two: Orange nails

        I'm back! This is my day two manicure and my second blog post! So orange eh? one of my least favorite colors. As a little bit of back story, I have an older brother who's about 16 months older then me. Understandably we were very close since we grew up so close in age. Well when we were in highschool the whole rave scene was very popular and with that came UFO pants, candy beads, pacifiers, and of course neon orange EVERYTHING! I myself as a self proclaimed punky gypsy however wanted nothing to do with this trend. My brother on the other hand was obsessed! I think at one point he had 5 pairs of those terrible tent like material pants- all in neon ORANGE! bleh! As the good sister that I am, I went out of my way to hide every single pair, but he just kept buying more! Needless to say I still have a strong dislike for this color. As evidenced by my polish collection in which there were only 3 colors in my stash that were in the orange range.

     One of the three (the NYC) is actually way more coral then orange but it suited my needs for this manicure. The other two are Julep the one in the middle is a frosty shimmery thin bright orange, while the one all the way to the right is a very pastel light orange creme. Neither of the julep's were colors I chose on my own nor would I. The frosty orange had a super wonky brush and was so thin you would probably need 4 coats for total opacity and the end result would be a streaky mess. The pastel orange needed 3 coats for full coverage which I find off for a creme.

So first I did a basecoat of Sally Hansen maximum growth (cuz I have weak little nubbins) Then followed that with two coats of the pastel orange creme. Then I added some essie shine of the times. I was originally going to stop there and call it a day, but the pastel orange was just too bright and cutesie or twee for my liking. I then decided to sponge the frosty orange and coral over it which actually made for a beautiful gradient with the slight sparkle of shine of the times peeking through!
But again still very boring and well, orange.  So I decided to give the monarch manicure a try!

Excuse the poor quality photo's still working on that aspect! All in all not bad for my first go though!
Although I'm not a fan of orange, I am loving this look! It was pretty simple too, I did the black with a nail polish pen and used white polish and a bobby pin for the little white dots. My right hand could use a little more finesse when it comes to the details but i'm still pretty proud of butterfly nails! Let me know what you think!

Steady hands to all!

 

31dc2013 The Beginning!

31dc2013 Day 1: Red Nails

           So, I've been painting my nails for years. Recently I've grown a tad obsessed with reading and looking at nail blogs. About a year ago I told myself that collecting nail polish and doing nail art was a good hobby to keep me entertained while quitting smoking. While the quitting didn't last, the nail art continued. My once meager collection of 5 colors has blossomed into a caboodle type case overflowing with polish and nail art supplies. I have driven my Husband and friends crazy showing them my nails, polish, and design ideas. So I decided to start my own little blog to share with people who might actually care about my hobby.

        I decided to start my foray into the nail blogging world with the 31 day challenge:

     I'm a little late getting this up, but i will update later with day two and three to get back on track,
now back to the nails!

    Excuse the fuzzy photos. I'm still working on that aspect of the blogosphere.
For this manicure I used a NYC coral red as a base then sponged two darker jelly like red's from wet n wild for a slight gradient effect. Then on my ring finger I used two coats of julep "Mila" which I guess julep has retired, which is a shame. This polish is dense with multi and charcoal glitter, goes on really nice and no fishing or dabbing needed for full sparkly coverage! The first photo in this post shows the red color the best. This manicure was hard to capture it just kept looking soooo orange and not red like it was in person.

       This photo shows the multi-sparkles of Mila very well, and the red is closer to what it looks like!

          So there you have it my first go at nail blogging. I will be trying to keep up with this 31 day challenge as best as possible, but do forgive me as I am a newb to blogging.

Steady hands to all!